Fuel for Thought

James Surowiecki in The New Yorker, on why many Americans support higher fuel efficiency standards even though they don’t buy fuel efficient cars:

Back in the nineteen-seventies, an economist named Thomas Schelling, who later won the Nobel Prize, noticed something peculiar about the N.H.L. At the time, players were allowed, but not required, to wear helmets, and most players chose to go helmet-less, despite the risk of severe head trauma. But when they were asked in secret ballots most players also said that the league should require them to wear helmets.

★ Monday, 23 July 2007